


Chemical Reaction

by ChiaraWaters



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/F, F/M, Femlock, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:50:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiaraWaters/pseuds/ChiaraWaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only been twenty hours since the death of her friend, Sherlock Holmes. Joni doesn't know what to do with herself, with her life. Meanwhile, Sherlock is trying to cope with seeing her friend mourn her faked death. She's preparing herself for the long journey that lies before her. It's time to unravel James Moriarty's web.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Mourning

**Author's Note:**

> [based upon my friends genderswap photosets on tumblr](http://jhwatsons.tumblr.com/tagged/sherlock%3A-genderswap)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> She's amazing. The idea has been spinning around my head since she posted them. Also, all the Reichenbach dialogue goes to Steve Thompson, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat.

Joni Watson, or Jon to her closest friends, sat in the armchair in cluttered sitting room of her flat. Her face felt raw, even though she hadn’t been crying at all. She was dressed in her regular dress - jeans and a blouse. Her fingers stretched out against the rough ribbed fabric on her chair, her toes curling against the very expensive persian rug, Sherlock’s not hers, except for the tiny movement of her toes she hadn’t moved for over two hours. She didn’t know what to do. Her whole body seemed to be repulsed by the idea of leaving the chair, or the flat. She was just taking small breaths, as if she was expecting to experience a panic attack soon and was just preparing herself. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? To have some sort of attack of emotion. Usually in these cases, of extreme grief, that was usually something to be expected. She was just waiting for it to hit. The thought had crossed her mind though that it wouldn’t come. That she would just continue living her life, and no tears would fall, no sharp inhales as if she had just been stabbed through the heart. Maybe she wasn’t built that way. Maybe she was unlike normal people, unlike the people she had seen have attacks of emotion right in front of her.  
She had experienced that too many times for her liking. Having to tell families, spouses, children, or friends, who were all waiting in the Hospital’s waiting room, waiting for news about their loved one and instead of good news, she had to look them in the eye and tell them that they had tried their best but they were gone for good. Just like Mark had done only the short twenty hours before.

Of course there had been nothing that Mark or any of doctors could have done. Jon had watched her best friend, her flatmate, Sherlock jump to her death. Sherlock was capable of many things, but surviving a fall from a four storey building, was one of the things that Jon was sure she couldn’t survive. Despite her entire body aching and wishing that Sherlock was capable of such a feat.  
She heard the footsteps behind her, coming up the stairs and her heart leapt for a short moment before realizing that there was no way that was Sherlock coming up the stairs. Sherlock’s steps were always softly padded, like a cats, barely making any noise, even when she walked across the old wooden floors that made Jon feel like she weighed two times more than she did, the floors were quiet for Sherlock. These footsteps were hard, she knew who it was. She didn’t move though, they would let themselves in.  
They always did. 

Georgia Lestrade had her hands in her coat pockets, stepping into the open door of the flat at 221b Baker Street, the home of Jon Watson and the late Sherlock Holmes, two of the most incredible women Georgia knew. She took a sharp breath and looked around, nothing had changed, she didn’t know why she had expected it to, it had only been twenty hours, almost twenty-four, since Sherlock had jumped to her death off the top of St. Bart’s Hospital. She walked over to Jon, and stood awkwardly for a moment before walking to the leather armchair that was positioned directly across from Jon. “May I?” She asked. Jon nodded a short nod. Georgia knew who’s chair she was about to sit in, but it was either that or one of the two rather uncomfortable wooden desk chairs that the flatmates had at their respective desks. 

“Jon, I know this is hard, and I really don’t want to ask for this but...” She was interrupted by Joni.  
“You need a statement.” Jon said, her eyes slowly making their way to Georgia’s face.  
Georgia nodded. “I’m afraid so. I wouldn’t be asking, but my boss is really cracking down on getting reports in. I tried to explain that you needed space, but she wouldn’t have it.”  
Jon nodded, her eyes falling shut for a moment in a prolonged blink and then opened again, looking straight into Georgia’s eyes. “When?”  
“Today, I’m afraid. I have my car waiting outside.” 

Jon nodded, pushing down on her palms as she finally moved from the chair. Her feet moving against the rough surface of the rug. She walked silently to the coatrack and pulled off her leather jacket and pulled it around her, the lining feeling smooth even through the blouse she was wearing. She slipped on her oxford shoe, usually hating the feel of bare feet in a shoe, but the walk up the stairs to her bedroom seemed like too much of an effort and there was no way that she was going to Sherlock’s room to borrow a pair of her socks. Not that she would know. Still, it was the principal of the thing. 

She turned and faced Georgia.  
“Shall we?” Georgia’s soft accented voice asked.  
Jon nodded. 

The two walked down the stairs, Georgia leading the way.  
The car ride to The New Scotland Yard was long and quiet. Joni watched the traffic, feeling the burn of Georgia’s eyes on the back of her head. 

“I’m fine.” She said in response to Georgia’s thought question.  
“I don’t know how you can be, Jon. You saw her...” Georgia didn’t want to complete that sentence, and Jon was happy she didn’t.  
Jon nodded. “And I’m fine.” It was a lie. They both knew it, but Georgia didn’t argue. She just nodded and starred straight at the road, making the turns quietly. 

Jon wished people didn’t stare. She wanted people to not be talking about her behind her back, that they wouldn’t want a picture of her in her misery. She hadn’t minded the attention when Sherlock was with her. The two women standing side by side for the press during certain gatherings in their honor. She hadn’t minded putting pictures of herself on the blog, documenting her life with Sherlock Holmes. Now, though, now that had all changed. She wanted nothing more to go back to the way things had been. Maybe she would have played it differently.  
She wouldn’t have put pictures of Sherlock and herself on her blog, maybe she wouldn’t even write a blog, if she hadn’t done those things, they might be still living at the flat, friends, together. Her mind drifted to a movie she had once gone to see, with Gwyneth Paltrow, about a woman who missed her train and had lived two separate lives. Sliding doors. Jon had found the concept interesting, and for a brief moment she wondered if there was a different universe where she and Sherlock were still solving crimes together, sharing the flat where Sherlock would still wake up Jon at three in the morning with her violin music. That thought made her stomach drop and she shook her head, as if physically expelling it from her mind. 

Georgia and Jon walked quietly to Georgia’s office. Of course there would be consequences for Georgia. She was now being accused of letting a criminal mastermind help out with cases. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that there would be consequences. 

Jon sat down in one of the rather uncomfortable chairs across from Georgia’s wooden desk. “What do you need to know?” She asked as the DI stepped behind her desk and started getting her pen and paper out.  
“I just need to know what was said between you two, what she may have said before...” _Please don’t say, please, please._ Jon’s thoughts screamed out, but weren’t heard by Georgia, who forced out the last part of the sentence. “...Before she jumped.”  
Jon swallowed. “Is it not possible for that conversation to be private between two friends?”  
Georgia looked down at the pad of paper in front of her, shaking her head softly. “Sadly no. We would ask for the suicide note if there had been one.”  
 _”This phone call. It’s... it’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note.”_  
Jon looked down in her lap. And for a moment there was silence between the two of them.  
“She didn’t say much. Just the usual, who to apologize to.” Jon lied, and again both knew it was a lie.  
Georgia let it slip. Nodding and making a few marks down on the paper. “Anything else?” 

_”What’s going on?”  
“An apology... It’s all true.” Sherlock’s voice had sounded pained.  
“What?”  
“Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.”  
“Why are you saying this?” Jon had stumbled out, her body feeling heavy.  
“I’m a fake.”  
“Sherlock...”  
“The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you.” She had paused. “That I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”_

“Jon?” Georgia’s voice broke through. Jon looked up at her. “Was there anything else she had said to you? Anything about why Moriarty’s body was there on the roof with her?”  
Jon shook her head. “No.” She squeaked out.  
Georgia took a breath. “Okay. I’m sorry I dragged you down here to do this.”  
Jon forced a smile and looked up at Georgia. “You’re just doing your job. I understand.” She got out of the chair, and walking carefully to the door. Before she opened the glass door to walk back out amongst the cubicles, she turned and looked at her friend. “I hope you don’t get sacked.”  
Georgia let out a small, insecure chuckle and nodded. “You and me both.”  
Jon nodded and opened the door. 

_”Okay, shut up Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met. The first time we met, you knew all about my brother. Right?”_  
“Nobody could be that clever.”  
“You could.” Jon had answered, automatically. Speaking the truth.  
Sherlock had let out a small chuckle, then there had been silence. A pause. “I researched you. Before we met, I discovered everything I could, to impress you.” Another short pause. “It’s a trick. It’s just a magic trick.” Her voice sounded sad. 

Jon sat in the black cab, on the way back to the flat. Her heart beating a million miles a minute. The detectives voice continuing in her head. Like a audio reel. 

_”Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please. Will you do this for me?”_

She took another deep breath. She leaned across the car and tapped on the glass separating her and the driver.  
“Change of plans. Can you take me to Old Street in Hoxton Square?”  
The cabbie nodded and began driving towards Harry Watson’s flat.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock’s head was pounding. She groaned as she raised a hand to her forehead and pressed down hard with her thumb, index, and middle finger to her temple. She took a deep breath, turning her head and looking at the unfamiliar grey pillow case. It smelled of sweat, and a musky cologne, Old Spice. She made a mental note to tell Mark that he needed to wash his pillow cases before letting women sleep in his bed.  
Despite the pounding in her head, she pulled the sheets off of her, and looked down at her feet. The plaid pajama pants hanging off of her thin body, too big for her. She ran a hand down her left thigh and forced herself to get up. She had things to do. Things that couldn’t wait much longer, if they did, it would take longer for her to get back to Jon. That wouldn’t do.

Sherlock ran a hand through her hair, pressing it down in places that it was sticking up from the way she had slept, looking in the mirror on the dresser and rubbing at her eyes. Needing all the sleep out of them. She opened the door to the bedroom, dressed in the extra pair of black fitted dress pants, and a white mans dress shirt, that Mark had picked up from Baker Street the day before, while Jon was at Scotland Yard. There had been no way she would have been able to wear her clothes she had worn the previous day. They were blood stained, and dirty from the sidewalk.  
She stepped out into the sitting room and looked around. Mark’s place was your typical bachelor apartment, a few framed Doctor Who and Star Wars posters, his flat screen tv and x-box placed a few feet away from the leather sofa.  
She saw him standing in the kitchen. She reached up and began to gather her hair into a messy bun, wrapping the hair elastic around her long hair and letting it sit on the back of her hair, loose pieces falling into her eyes. She would have to cut and dye it, that would be the only way she would get away with what she had to do. She would have to ask Mark to do it, there wasn’t anybody else she could turn to. 

“You should wash your sheets before you let another woman sleep in your bed.” She said, picking up an extra cup of coffee that must have been waiting for her and taking a sip. Cringing at the usual bland taste that collided with her tongue whenever she tried one of the cups Mark made.  
Mark looked embarrassed, and Sherlock sighed, knowing what she had to say before he could say anything else. “Thank you for letting me sleep there. How was the sofa?”  
Mark shook his head. “No problem at all. The sofa was comfortable. I was thinking I should sleep out here more often.” He said weakly, not even believing what was coming out of his mouth. Though, Sherlock could tell that he was grateful for the thanks she had given him. She nodded, not saying anything while she pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. Her elbows leaning on the table. 

“How long are you here for?” Mark’s deep voice asked.  
“Not too long. Too much to do. I might stay a few days, see if Jon is okay.”  
Mark nodded, taking the seat opposites of her and pushing a plate of limp looking toast in her direction. She picked a piece up out of courtesy and took a small bite, placing it down on the edge of the plate.  
“I don’t know if I’d be okay, seeing what she saw.” He said, swallowing a large bite of the toast.  
Sherlock looked down, nodding. That was what hurt so much. Of course Jon wasn’t okay. 

The two sat in silence for a bit. Mark obviously wanted to say something, that was clear to Sherlock by the way that he kept fidgeting, or grabbing more toast, when ever Sherlock knew that he was full. Her thoughts were on Jon though, and she was finding Mark’s fidgeting distracting. She thought about the way Jon’s voice had sounded over the phone. So pained, emotional. Sherlock wasn’t willing to acknowledge the tears that had been falling down her face. Of course, Jon had been quite the soldier and even though her voice had been pained, weak, and at times like she was fighting her own emotions, as far as Sherlock could tell, she hadn’t cried.  
Sherlock wondered if Jon had cried this morning. That thought made her heart feel heavy, and she dismissed the thought. Not willing to let her think about things like that. It could distract from her priorities.  
She took the last sip of her horrible coffee and looked at Mark. 

“You’re going to be late for work.” She said nodding up at the clock.  
He looked up at the clock and nodded, jumping up off his chair and rushing to grab his coat. “You’ll be all right on your own here?” He asked, and she rolled her eyes.  
“Of course I will.” She replied. _Great, give a man the chance to help you out and he assumes your a damsel in distress._  
“Right. Of course you will.” He walked back into the kitchen and grabbed his keys off the table. “You have the extra key I gave you yesterday?”  
She nodded.  
“Right. Have a good day then.” He said with a small smile, and disappeared. She waited for the click of the front door before she got up and grabbed his laptop. Opening it and searching through the morning’s news. 

Speed reading the few headlines about her fall, wasn’t enough to keep her mind off of Jon long enough. She knew she couldn’t go out looking like herself. She needed to get things done. Mark was gone, she would have to dye her hair on her own. She wondered back into the bedroom, and opened the small shopping bag of things she had instructed Mark to get the night before. 

_”You’re wrong you know. You do count. You’ve always counted, and I’ve always trusted you. But you were right. I’m not okay.”  
“Tell me what’s wrong.”  
“Mark, I think I’m going to die.”  
“What do you need?”  
“If I wasn’t everything you think I am, everything that I think I am. Would you still want to help me?”  
“What do you need?”  
“You.” _

The blonde hair dye sat at the bottom of the bag. L’Oreal Paris Perfect Blonde Creme. She picked it up and began opening the box. She had done this once before in her University years and unless they had changed the directions drastically, she didn’t think she needed to read them.  
She began unbuttoning the shirt, throwing it onto the bed and walking back to the bathroom. Carefully, like she was about to perform an experiment, she laid everything out on the bathroom counter, thanking Mark for choosing a flat with a big enough bathroom to do this in. She picked up the scissors that had been laying on the dresser in the bedroom. She took out the hair elastic, watching as her beautiful brown hair fell against her shoulders.  
Most women would take a deep breath, or be sad about cutting off their long hair. Mourning the hair that would have taken them years to grow out. Not Sherlock. She was doing this for Jon. For Jon’s safety, for her protection. So without thinking, she cut into the hair. Holding the chunk of hair to stop it from falling to the floor and making a bigger mess than was necessary. She was always amazed at how thick hair seemed when you were cutting it. She heard the small sound that accompanied the cuts. Dropping the chunk of hair into the garbage, before repeating, until her long hair no longer touched her shoulders but hung loosely and without any sort of curl along her jawline. 

The dying process took longer than expected, and she was getting annoyed. After almost fifty minutes of the bleach stinging her scalp, she took off her clothes and jumped into the shower. Closing her eyes tightly so that none of the bleach got into them.  
She brushed her hands through her hair, feeling the thick dried bleach under her finger tips as it washed out with the warm water. She took a deep breath, she needed to remember to breath sometimes. Even though it hurt to think that she was in Mark’s flat and not her own; The one she had grown quite accustomed to, and the flatmate she had grown quite fond of. She needed to remember why she was here. As tempting as it was to run back to Baker Street and tell Jon that she was okay, she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. 

An hour later, Sherlock was dressed again, her now blonde hair dried and hanging straight against her face. She walked out of the bedroom and to the kitchen. Mark was sitting at the table, with a large sandwich and a coke bottle. He looked up, his mouth dropping open a little. 

“Stunned is not a very attractive look on you.” She said with a roll of her eyes, taking the seat across from him.  
He closed his mouth. “You look... well, yeah, you look, good.” He finally spat out.  
She nodded. “Thank you.” She said out of courtesy, still wanting to make Jon proud by not being so rude all the time. Especially to Mark.  
“You’re welcome.” He said with a smile, still getting accustomed to the polite version of Sherlock Holmes who had told him that he was what she needed. The one person that Sherlock had gone to in a time of need. It made up for all the times he had let himself get used by her, to help her with things and to get blown off. “I came to check on you.” He said before taking a bite of the sandwich.  
“I can tell. You didn’t need to. I’m fine on my own.”  
He winced a little at her brisk tone of voice, and she sighed a little, her gaze dropping. “Well, I thought maybe...” He trailed off. 

There was silence between the two for what felt like forever to Mark, and too short of a time for Sherlock. She watched him, the way he ate the sandwich in bites that made her want to shiver. The way some men ate just repulsed her. The crunch of the lettuce under his incisors and canine teeth, tearing off the fresh vegetable and by the smell and look of it, turkey meat.  
He had cleaned up a bit before coming back to the flat. The stain on his collar, that from by the looks of it was blood from an artery that had decided to spray during a postmortem, had been haphazardly cleaned up. His hair had fresh product in it, he had left the flat without any this morning, she knew from previous experiences that he kept the small container of Lock Stock  & Barrel pucka grooming creme tucked into one of the shelves behind his desk at the lab. He looked better this way, with a bit of gel in his hair. Less like a meek little fifteen year old and more his age. 

“Mark, I need you to do something for me.” Her voice was soft, their eyes connecting as he looked up still chewing the last of his lunch. “I need you to find out when my funeral will be.” She paused  
He nodded. “Of course.”  
“And I need you to find out whether Jon is going or not.”  
He was silent for a moment and then he nodded. “I’ll try my best to find out.”  
She looked down at wooden table. “Thank you.” She paused again, and there was silence for a moment. “For everything.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter is so short. Next chapter will be Sherlock's POV of this scene.  
> Also, if you could please review, or give kudos, that would be awesome. It motivates me to write more :D  
> Thank you to all who have read this.
> 
> Also, most of the dialogue (if not all of it in this chapter) is written by the absolutely wonderful, Steve Thompson.

Jon sat in the black cab, and looked out the window as it passed through the familiar streets of London. She had lived here most of her life, having moved out of her parents house when she was finished with school; but for the first time the city she had grown to love, and to call home, seemed unfamiliar. Like everything had a dark shadow cast over it.  
She couldn’t bring herself to look at Mrs. Hudson. The woman was carrying flowers, and even though she knew Sherlock would have appreciated the gesture from their landlady, Sherlock had never been one for flowers.

The cab ride seemed long and short all at the same time. The way it does when you’re traveling to a place that you don’t want to reach. Jon felt like she had barely caught her breath by the time the cab pulled into the cemetery. The two women, walked arm in arm to the grave of the late Sherlock Holmes. Jon tried to keep her composure, it was hard though, she had never been one to show any sort of deep emotion. At least not in public. Her emotions were her own, and for a select few, and for her own reasons she felt that Mrs. Hudson, though a beautiful older woman who Joni respected and admired, did not deserve to see her emotions. Jon only wanted on person to see them. Sherlock.  
Sherlock, or rather Sherlock’s grave, would be the only person who was permitted to see Jon’s emotions in regards to this occasion. 

_”The stuff that you wanted to say, but didn’t say it.”  
“Yeah...”  
“Say it now.”  
“No. Sorry, I can’t.”  
_

“There’s all the stuff. The science equipment. I left it all in boxes, I don’t know what needs doing. I thought I’d take it to a school. Would you...?” Jon heard Mrs. Hudson’s voice.  
She needed to say something, she had made her decision. “I can’t go back to the flat. Not at the moment.” Mrs. Hudson wrapped her arm through the ex-army doctors and gave her a look that made Jon feel worse.  
 She couldn’t hold it in any more. “I’m angry...” Jon let out.  
“That’s okay Jon. There’s nothing unusual in that, that’s the way she made everyone feel. The marks on my table, and the noise, firing guns off at one in the morning, bloody specimens in my fridge. Imagine keeping bodies where there’s food. And the fighting! Drove me up the wall with all her carryings on.” Mrs. Hudson was letting it all out apparently, and Jon couldn’t handle it all. She wanted, no, needed space.  
“Yeah, listen. I’m not actually that angry, okay?” She looked at Mrs. Hudson, her voice slightly annoyed with the woman.  
Mrs. Hudson nodded, “Okay, I’ll leave you alone to... you know...” She patted her lip with her index finger as if to say “to let you speak whatever you need to say to her.” And the older woman walked away, leaving Jon alone.  
Jon took a breath, looking back and making sure that the landlady was gone, far enough away so as she would not hear all that the doctor needed to say to her deceased flatmate, and best friend. “Uh, hmmm... you told me once that you weren’t a hero.” She swallowed. She was angry with herself, for not saying this before. Saying the things that she had needed Sherlock to hear, but always being too scared to say, or assuming that it was just understood. “there were times when I didn’t even think you were human. But, let me tell you this, you were the best woman, and the most human. Human-being that I’ve ever known and nobody will ever convince me that you ever told me a lie. There.” Her heart was breaking, cracking down the middle all over again. She wondered if it would ever be whole again. Why hadn’t she spoken these words before? Had Sherlock understood that this was how Jon felt? That she was, in some ways, her idol. She looked behind her again, not sure what to do. She stepped towards the grave and reached out her hand, scared to feel the cold stone below her fingertips. She touched it lightly, tentatively. “I was so alone, and I owe you so much.” She took a deep breath, stepping away from the grave and beginning to walk away. No, she couldn’t do it. She needed Sherlock. She turned back and faced the dark grave that read SHERLOCK HOLMES. “Please, there’s just one more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t. Be. Dead.” Her voice broke, her emotions getting the better of her, and tears finally threatened to break her. “Would you do that? Just for me? Just stop it, stop this.” She wanted to crumble, to lay on the cold ground and cry. Instead she simply clenched her fists, a habit that she had when she was trying to gather her composure. She let two tears fall, before reaching to her face and wiping them away. 

Jon gathered herself, and stood straight. She was a soldier after all. Giving herself and Sherlock a small nod before turning and walking away. She didn’t know if she would ever visit the grave of her friend again. This was her goodbye. Now, she needed to mourn, and she needed to take a break from 221b Baker Street. She knew eventually she would get back to her normal life, the life she was leading before Sherlock Holmes came into her life and changed it for the better. She dreaded going back to it. It had been lonely, and boring. Sherlock Holmes had saved her.


End file.
